Another Brick in the Wall
by Psammead
Summary: AT/AU- Dean wakes up and is shocked to discover he is 17 and everyone he loves is safe and happy, so clearly something must be horribly, horribly wrong. Who sent him there? Will he be able to go home? Will he manage to graduate from high school this time?
1. Chapter 1: Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape or form own Supernatural and this is why.

Warnings/Notes: Dean/Castiel, some pseudo-underage sex (everyone is seventeen, and consenting, if that helps.) and underage alcohol/marijuana use. Schmoopy schmoop-schmoop. Set after 6.22. Pseudo-spoilers for the end of Season 6, and for the books Catcher in the Rye and Love in the Time of Cholera. While self-betaing this, I also realized I made the boys say the fuck word an awful lot, and other swears. I think I wrote them that way because I think they would swear like goddamned sailors if they weren't on the CW. This story is written to be my happy place when Season 7 inevitably breaks my heart.

**Chapter One: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Writing on the Wall)**

"Dean! Dean! Are you okay? Dean, please, wake up! Mom!"

Dean Winchester could hear Sam yelling, but something was terribly, terribly off about it. It was high pitched, frantic, and was he actually crying for their mother? Dean tried to speak, but was overcome with a wave of dizziness instead. The last thing he remembered was Castiel going supernova, and then everything had gone black. He vaguely felt his body being lifted by strong arms, and smelled the familiar scent of the Impala. Then, the blackness claimed him again.

When he came to again, he was in a hospital. He slowly opened his eyes, and then shut them again instantly. _Not possible._ He thought. He opened them again. John and Mary Winchester stood at the side of his bed, Mary holding his hand, John's hand on her shoulder. He looked to his other side. It was Sam, for sure, but Sam at age fourteen, all big blinky eyes, floppy hair, and awkward limbs.

"Mmm…" Dean stuttered, before rasping out the full word. "Mom?" His eyes filled with tears.

"Dean! Oh, honey, it's going to be okay. They did a scan, there might be some mild damage, but you'll recover." Mary squeezed his hand.

'What… what happened?" he asked.

"You fell!" Sam exclaimed, "Out of the tree house! It was crazy; you just plummeted like a rock!"

"The tree house?" Dean was confused as all hell now. They hadn't had a tree house since… _Oh fuck. Since 1983,_ Dean thought.

A man came in, the white coat and stethoscope a tell-tale sign that this was a doctor. Dean didn't recognize him.

"Well, Mr. and Mrs. Winchester, Dean here is a very lucky boy. He seems to have a mild concussion. There might be some retrograde amnesia- that means he may have trouble recalling past events for a while, but with rest and care, he should make a full recovery. He can go home in the morning; we just want to observe him overnight to be safe."

Dean let the voices fade away as he considered what he had just seen and heard. _Okay. Djinn. It's gotta be. Mom and Dad alive, Sam happy and safe. This reeks of Djinn._ Dean tried to push himself up and the doctor put a hand on his shoulder.

"Easy now, kiddo, we'll let you go home in the morning. You really can't move too much til then, okay?"

Dean forced a smile and nodded, struck by another wave of dizziness. _Okay, no moving for right now. I'll deal with this as soon as I can get out of here._

In the morning, the Winchesters came to get him, much to his relief.

"I'm glad you're okay." In the backseat of the Impala, Sam reached over and squeezed Dean's hand. Dean smiled at his little brother, feeling sick inside, and thought, _How fucked up is this? How many times do the demons have to dangle this life in front of us before we break?_

Once home, Dean stood in the yard, looking at the house. _White, two stories, pillars, yeah, that's the house, exactly like I remember._

His parents and Sam hovered over him, but Dean reassured them he was fine, and just needed some time to relax. He went up to his room. It wasn't exactly as he remembered, but it was the room he would have had at seventeen, if he'd lived a normal life. There were Zeppelin posters, worn band t-shirts in place of curtains, an acoustic guitar in the corner. Vonnegut novels on his small bookshelf, which was mostly full of cassette tapes and cds. He grinned when he saw the stereo system- it was pimpin', for the time period. The room was plain, but comfortable.

There was a knock on the door, which when opened, revealed Sam, clutching a photo album.

"The doctor said we should try and help you remember things."

Dean almost hesitated, but at the look in his little brother's eyes, let him in. He sat on the bed, and Sam gingerly sat next to him.

As they paged through the pictures, Dean had to hold back tears again. Family vacations, holidays, the usual sappy crap, but this was his family, his parents, his brother and him, living the normal life they always dreamed of. Worse, as they flipped though the pages, Dean could almost remember the events.

_What sort of fucked up spell is this?_ he thought.

"Who're they?" He tapped a photo that showed Sam and Dean with two other kids, one of them a boy with bright blue eyes and dark hair, the other with lighter blue-green eyes and reddish hair.

"Cas and Anna. You'll remember them, they've only lived next door to us forever," Sam said, concerned eyes searching Dean's face.

"Huh." Dean grunted. _Does this mean Cas and Anna are part of my heart's desire now?_ "Sam, can I ask you a funny question?"

"Yeah, of course, anything. The doctor said you might have a lot of weird questions at first."

"Uh… Does Dad ever hunt? Or Mom?"

"Well, Dad does, yeah, with Bobby sometimes, only small game, though, and deer. I don't think they really do it for the kill, though, I think they just like the excuse to get away from Mom and Ellen and drink and bullshit."

"No, I mean… demons. Do our parents ever hunt demons?"

Sam was looking at him like he was crazy now. "Demons? Demons aren't real, Dean. Should I go get Mom?"

"No, uh, no, I just need some rest, Sammy, I'll be tip top tomorrow. No more funny questions," Dean tried to smile reassuringly.

After Sam left, Dean went to the den. Luckily, his fantasy family had succumbed to the internet age, and they had the basic Windows set-up. Dean was amazed by how slow the dial up connection was. Finally, though, he was able to search through the few cases he remembered his dad working back in the day. He turned up nothing, no deaths, and no mysterious circumstances. Next he searched for lore, checking the old sites and missing person's ads. There was nothing suspicious. In fact, according to the internet, there was absolutely no evidence that hunters, demons or angels ever existed, other than very basic mythology and the usual Bible crap.

Confused, and unsure of what to do, Dean decided to check out the neighborhood. He told Mary and Sam he needed to get some fresh air, kissed Mary on the cheek, pausing for a few extra seconds to hug her, and smell the incredibly missed scent of mom-ness.

He wandered down the street, glancing up at the house next to the Winchester's. He thought he saw a pale face vanish behind curtain, and heard a window slam shut suddenly. No one reappeared, and after a moment, Dean continued down the street. Preoccupied in planning his next move, he almost knocked over the red-headed girl rushing down the street.

"Woah! Dean. Hey. Watch it, you almost got me." Anna smiled at him. Dean stared for a moment at her, young and beautiful and alive. She seemed human. "What happened yesterday? We heard yelling, and then you all drove off in a hurry. Everything okay?" A golden cross glinted at her throat.

"Yeah. Uh, I fell. Out of the tree house."

"Yeesh. Are you okay?" Her eyes widened with concern.

"Yeah. I'm a little concussed, but the doc says I'll make a full recovery."

"Oh, good! Will you be in school next week?"

"God, I hope not," Dean said with a passion.

Anna's face sobered. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that, Dean."

"Huh? What?" Dean was perplexed.

"Take His name in vain. We've talked about this," she sighed, crossed her arms.

"Oh, uh, I'm sorry, Anna, " Dean apologized, "I wasn't thinking."

"I forgive you." She blinked seriously, and smiled a smaller smile. "I'll see you at school."

"Yeah. Uh, tell Cas I said hey." At that, Anna looked surprised, but nodded and went up her walkway.

As he wandered though the neighborhood, he wandered past a junkyard named B & E Scrap Yard. Remembering the Titanic-timeline where Bobby and Ellen were married, Dean went inside the gates. It was Bobby's house, no doubt, exactly the same, but in Lawrence. _What the fuck,_ Dean thought, and was abruptly almost knocked off his feet by a tiny blonde tornado.

"Uff!" he grunted, and Jo bounced back, grinning with glee.

"Dean! You're okay!" _God, she must be eleven or twelve._ Dean boggled a moment at the preteen Jo in front of him.

"Yeah, just a head bump. Your ma home?"

"Yeah she is, and we just made pie, she musta known you were coming!" Jo grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the house. Bobby sat on the porch, disturbingly clean, beer in hand. Jo kissed him on the cheek.

"Dean says he's okay, Daddy," she smiled, and led Dean into Bobby's equally disturbingly clean kitchen.

Dean sat a while with Ellen and Jo, eating fresh apple pie, and looking at the family pictures strewn about with a strange mixture of heartbreak and joy. _It's weird that my brain would make Jo into Bobby's daughter, and them living in Lawrence. But I guess it makes sense that I'd want this for them. _He also looked for signs of demon activity, or indications of hunting, but everything seemed as normal as the pie in front of him.

After his plate was cleaned, and there were hugs all around, Dean headed home.

_I am really fucking confused,_ was his last conscious thought before he drifted off to sleep after being tucked in- _Seriously, tucked in at seventeen. I guess I could have protested, but it's just too damn nice._- by his mother.

The next morning, Dean woke, and wandered downstairs. As he got to the doorway into the kitchen, he saw something that made him freeze in his tracks and almost break down.

Breakfast, blueberry pancakes and a heaping mound of bacon with potatoes and syrup and butter graced the table. Sam sat, drinking orange juice and making a disgusted face. His parents stood by the window, John holding Mary in his arms as he kissed her the way only the truly in love can kiss.

_A moment of perfect happiness, _he thought. Dean wanted it to be true, to be real, so badly that he felt tears spring to his eyes and his heart seize up in his chest. It took him several minutes before he could control himself, and when he finally entered the kitchen, he thought he might lose it all over again. Mary and John broke apart, and his mom came over and hugged him, running her hand across his forehead, checking for bumps.

"How did you sleep?"

"Oh, fine, Mom." Dean hugged her back, tightly, and then sat at the table. They ate breakfast, chatted about times past, and Dean sat quietly, trying to remember the last time he'd felt such conflicting emotions, so happy and peaceful and so terrified because he knew it had to be a trap. He picked up some interesting bits of information over breakfast- John and Bobby owned a car repair shop together, Winchester Auto, and Ellen mostly ran the scrap yard. Ellen's first husband, Jo's dad, had died when she was small. Cas and Anna grew up next door, but only Anna and her mother, also named Mary, came by these days. Sam was just as dorky in this universe with a normal childhood as he was in the real world. As Dean left the house, he felt sick to his stomach, partly from the excessive amount of breakfast, and partly from the pain of being taunted by his fondest fantasies being used to fuck with him. _I don't know what's doing this, but I will end them, _he thought grimly.

Over the next week, Dean tried everything. Summoning rituals, prayers, he even went to the library and did actual research. Nothing worked. He seemed to be completely trapped. Finally, he figured, _Nothing I can do but play the game, and wait for the big bad to reveal itself. At this point, I'm thinking it's the Guardian of Forever fucking with me. I expect Joan Collins to show up any minute. _

That was how Dean Winchester, a thirty three year old man trapped in his awkward, seventeen year old body, found himself starting his senior year of high school at Lawrence High.

_At least this time, it should be easier. Just call me Peggy Sue, _he told himself, as he headed to his first class. By the end of it, his notebook was covered in band logos and the teacher, a youngish man named Mr. Kripke had called on him three times, each time resulting in a wrong answer from Dean. Needless to say, he was asked to stay after class.

"Dean, I'm glad to see you're on your feet, heard about your fall. I was thinking it might be helpful to you to seek some tutoring now, when you have a good chance of getting things together. I see you have a study hall fourth period. Why don't you ask Cas Abimael for help? He was in the high honors class last year, and he tutors his peers for his Honors Club."

_Seriously? Abimael? How did that name happen?_ Dean thought to himself, but agreed with the teacher, and went on his way. He was a little excited to know he'd see Cas soon. _Okay, I kinda miss the nerd angel_, he thought, shuddering a little at the thought of the wringer the last year had put their friendship though.

Fourth period came. Dean paused in the doorway, seeing the dark head bowed, and knowing instantly that the messy black hair belonged to his friend. The other boy's head was lowered, his tongue sticking out as he concentrated very, very hard on the paper in front of him. As Dean drew nearer, he was surprised to see that what Castiel was so studiously drawing was the Swan Song logo. He chuckled to himself at that, and at the noise, Cas looked up. The blue eyes were exactly the same, cold, righteous, full of something sad and angry.

"Hello, Winchester," he said, and Dean was surprised to hear that while Cas's voice was still deeper than a seventeen-year-old's had any right to be, it wasn't filled with nearly the rasp and weight of the angle he had known.

"Hey, Cas."

Silence. The blue eyes regarded him warily.

"Um. Yeah. So, I, ah, I need some help. A tutor."

More silence, accompanied by skeptical narrowing of the eyes, then finally, "You want me… To tutor you."

"Uh… yes? Please?" Dean shifted uncomfortably in place.

Cas regarded him for another very long moment before he responded.

"Okay."

"Thanks, man. Um, can I stop by after school? Go over my homework with you?"

"I'm not going to do your work for you." Cas's voice was suspicious. Dean wondered what he had done to cause such hostility.

"No, no, I don't- it's not-"

"Yeah, okay, sorry. I'll see you after school." Cas bent his head back to his notebook.

"That's a good drawing." Dean said conversationally, trying not to be rattled by the curtness.

Cas ignored him, and Dean gave up after a few seconds. He sat across the row from Cas, though, and in between algebra problems, he looked over at the other boy. Cas was skinny as fuck, wearing a too-large black t-shirt and khaki pants. He didn't have any jewelry, Dean noted, and he wondered absently if Cas was as religious as Anna had seemed.

After school, Sam and Dean walked home together. Sam was a bundle of energy, talking a mile a minute, excited to finally be in High School.

"And there's a new girl, she just moved here from California, her name is Jess, she's so pretty!" Sam barely paused for breath, "And my favorite class was English, we're reading _the Great Gatsby_. It's awesome. High school is awesome."

After Sam was safely home, Dean headed next door. He knocked on the Abimael's blue door, and after a few seconds, a willowy woman with dark hair and the same blue eyes as Cas opened the door.

"Hey, Mrs. Abimael. I'm here to see Cas, he's tutoring me for school." Dean smiled, and she looked surprised for a moment, then delighted.

"Dean! It's been ages! I'm so glad to see you, come in!" She ushered him in. "Cas! Dean is here!"

After a few minutes of awkward but enthusiastic conversation with Mary, Cas manifested, and led the way up to his room.

"So," he said, arms crossed.

"So," Dean said, and held out his math and social studies homework. Cas placed the papers on his desk and silently looked them over. Dean took the opportunity to look over the room. There was a giant Swan Song poster covering almost half of one wall, and similarly to Dean's room, worn band t-shirts covering the windows. Cas's bookshelves were huge and covered the other wall of the room, however, stacked to overflowing with all sorts of literature.

'Well, this is horrible," Cas said, and Dean looked back to the desk. "How can you not tell the difference between you're, apostrophe R-E and your, Y-O-U-R? Seriously? How did you make it to senior English not being able to spell for shit? Did you even try researching this paper?"

"Well, I watched the First Knight. That's sort of research."

Cas stared at him in horror, "Is that a movie?"

"Um, yes? I'm pretty sure that came out in '95. Do you not get references in this universe, too?"

"What?"

"What? Um. Yeah. I based it on a movie. I don't really care about the days of yore." Dean tried out his most adorable smile on the frowning teenager in front of him. It almost worked; he saw the barest hint of smile curl Cas's lip.

"Well. You'll have to do some actual research and try again. This is shit." Cas crumpled the paper up. "Here, flip through this." He went to the bookshelf, handed Dean a large book, "Your paper isn't even supposed to be on King Arthur, it's on the feudal system. I'll check your math while you're reading."

Dean pretended to look through the book, but he mostly watched Cas instead. The tip of Cas's tongue was sticking out the corner of his mouth again, between pink, slightly chapped lips. He tapped his pencil restlessly against the desk as he marked error after error, brow furrowed in exasperation.

Hours later, Dean headed home, after being re-taught the basics of math and grammar by Cas. It was worth it, though, because by the end, Cas seemed to warm up to him, laughing at his jokes and even smiling openly at him. Dean had rarely seen the angel smile in his universe, and it sent thrills through his spine in a way that pleased and terrified him at the same time. His Cas was someone to be feared, even when he was a dork, because hey, still an Angel of the Lord and capable of Smiting Dean's ass six ways to Sunday, even before he went nuclear. This Cas was obviously fragile and wary, but definitely human, adorably human, actually. Dean smiled to himself.

When he got home, Sam was waiting for him.

"What were you doing over at Cas's?"

"He's tutoring me for school, cuz of the brain trauma, dorkwad." Dean ruffled Sam's hair affectionately. He was in a good mood, all things considered.

"It's good to see you guys talking again," Sam said seriously.

"We weren't before?" Dean raised his eyebrow.

"Not since your freshman year. You never talked about it." Sam looked sad for a minute, and then perked up. "Oh hey, you remember last week, when you asked about the demons? I think I figured out what you were talking about. Chuck's stories!" Sam held out the stack of papers clutched to his chest.

"Chuck's here?" Dean's stomach knotted up. _A lead? About damn time!_ he thought excitedly.

"Uh, well, no, Chuck's in Scotland with his parents til after Christmas, then they'll be back and he'll finish out the school year with us," Sam explained patiently, "But he writes those stories all the time, about us, and I thought maybe that's what you were thinking about."

Dean accepted the stack of papers. "Thanks, Sammy."

Sam wrinkled his nose. "Don't call me that. It's just Sam, now."

"Okay, Sammy," Dean grinned, "Wanna go out to the field and light some Black Cats?"

"Hell yes!" Sam grinned back.

Dean figured, if this was all just some sort of dream or Djinn illusion, it would all come crashing down eventually, so he might as well enjoy some of the time he was given with Sam again, in a place where they didn't have a lifetime of pain dragging them apart.

That night, Dean read Chuck's stories. It was all there, Mary and John's deaths, Sam, Dean, and Castiel, the Apocalypses, all of it, complete with over-dramatization and awkwardly explicit sex scenes, and at the very end, Castiel taking the souls into himself, and then the final showdown between Dean, Sam and Cas, where Dean had walked up to Cas, spit right in his face and called him out on the horror of what he had done, exactly, word for word. Dean was crying silently as he read the final lines.

_Castiel looked down at the fragile human in front of him, and slowly wiped the spittle from his alabaster cheek. _

"_How. Dare. You," he said, slowly, voice full of foreboding. He snapped his fingers and Sam fell to the ground, blood streaming from his every orifice._

"_Sammy!" Dean cried, but he was rooted in place by the new God's power. Castiel began to move towards him. "Fuck you, Cas."_

_Castiel stopped inches away from Dean, and suddenly his body jerked, and he began to shine with a terrible white light, exploding into an enormous pillar of blinding heat. The ground shook, and Dean tried to shield his eyes from the blast, but then everything went dark, and there was nothing and no one left._

There was nothing, not a single clue as to what brought him here, just what Dean already knew. _Well, that's a mark in the "this is all in my head" column,_ Dean thought. Suddenly, something occurred to him. _Unless Cas stuck me here, and it's an angelic alternate reality. In which case, I should play along with his game._

Dean maintained decent grades over the first month of school, with the help of Cas, and they studied together after school a few days each week. Then, the Odd Thing occurred.

They were sitting at Dean's kitchen table, and Cas had leaned in to mock Dean's grammar once again, and then had somehow failed to move away again. Now their knees were touching ever so slightly under the table, and if Cas noticed, he wasn't letting on. Dean, however, had noticed, and was fighting to quell a suddenly rising boner.

_What. The. Fuck, _he thought to himself. His heart was racing faster, his breath caught in his throat. It was like he really was a teenager again, finally close to the girl he crushed on. He couldn't stop sneaking glances at Cas's impossibly blue eyes and the pink lips that the other boy constantly flicked with that soft little tongue. _I wonder what his tongue would feel like on mine,_ the idea raced across Dean's thoughts unbidden. _Okay. Seriously. What the fuck._

Suddenly, the knee was gone, and Cas stood abruptly.

"I have to go. I'll see you in school, Dean," and he ran off before Dean could form a farewell.


	2. Chapter 2: Don't Stand So Close To Me

**Chapter Two: Don't Stand So Close To Me**

He was born Castiel Theodore Abimael, and he was high as balls. He tried to focus on the homework in front of him, but his thoughts drifted everywhere and anywhere.

_I'm only stoned,_, he told himself, _and that's not that bad._ _You basically have to be stoned to deal with my family._

They were an intensely religious family. Castiel was part of the second set of twins- he had two older twin brothers, Michael and Lucifer, and another brother in the middle named Gabriel. He and his sister, Haniel were fraternal twins. Cas didn't mind the religious name his mother had given him, but Haniel didn't like her name. She had insisted on being called Anna from a young age.

Castiel didn't remember his father. Gabriel barely did, and Michael and Lucifer refused to talk about it, ever. The night Castiel and Anna were born, El Abimael had vanished off the face of the earth. He had called his wife to tell her he was on his way to the hospital, and then just disappeared. His car, wallet and keys were on the table inside the door at home, and the police never turned up a lead. Sometimes, Cas didn't care that he had had no father. Sometimes he thought he'd die from the pain in his heart, but as long as he'd had Dean's friendship, that pain had been manageable.

Castiel's mother was named Mary, which was amusing to everyone, growing up next to the Winchester's, and all. The Mary's were good friends, and they had hoped their children would be as well, and they had been, for a long time.

Then again, Castiel had been in love with Dean Winchester for a very long time.

Until the Incident. Then Dean stopped talking to him, and everything in Cas's life started to spiral out of control. He kept doing his homework- he had a photographic memory and a near-genius IQ, so it was easy for him to do the absolute minimum to stay in honors without having to actually apply himself. When he turned 15, he smoked his first joint with his brother Gabriel, who had always been the rebel of the family. Gabriel had turned 18 the following year, though, and even though he had promised Cas that if he left, he'd take Cas with, he didn't. Gabe moved to LA, and Cas was stuck in Lawrence. In the wake of Gabe's departure, the drinking and getting high became a daily occurrence for Cas. He started smoking cigarettes. He _loved_ smoking cigarettes. They were something to focus on, something other than how much he hated everything else.

Castiel didn't consider himself a druggie, or a faggot, though. He felt he was in complete control of his substance use, and druggies got bad grades, after all, and it wasn't like he was hooked on the hard stuff, he told himself. And he certainly wasn't a fag. He was only interested in Dean. He'd tried to arouse curiosity in sex with anyone else, girls, boys, porn, but the only thing that he felt anything for was Dean and his big, green-hazel eyes, tanned skin and smell like summer, salt and sunshine.

Then suddenly, at the beginning of his senior year, just when Cas was certain he was about to lose his shit, Dean waltzed back into his life. Even weirder, Dean abandoned all his jock friends, started ignoring the cheerleader he'd been hanging all over last school year, and started _studying, _with Cas, no less.

That jerked his consciousness back to the now, sitting at the Winchester kitchen table, Dean's knee was gently rubbing against his own, each warm point of contact sending an electrical pulse up Cas's thigh and into his groin. He was hard, painfully hard. He found himself licking his lips with way too much frequency, and gulping for air. Dean, of course, seemed oblivious, focused on his paper, glancing up at Cas's increasing panic every so often. Finally, Cas found it too much to bear and stood abruptly.

"I have to go. I'll see you in school, Dean," and he ran, before the other boy could see the Embarrassing Pants Situation Cas was experiencing.

Cas got to his house safely, trying to calm down. He was about to grab his Emergency Box and head to the creek, when Anna knocked on his door.

"Hey, Cas." She opened the door without waiting for his okay, like she always did. Cas was sitting on the bed, trying to look innocent. "So, how's life? You and Dean are friends again?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"He's pretty cool, even if he doesn't believe in God. You should ask him to church with us, sometime." She stayed in the doorway, twisting her hands in front of herself awkwardly.

"Anna, I don't even believe in God." Cas said harshly. He and Haniel had been disagreeing about God since Cas had declared himself an atheist at the beginning of freshman year. His mother still forced him to go to church, but he took every opportunity to shove it in their faces.

Anna looked at him sadly. "I know. But maybe it would nice, anyways."

"I don't think so. I think Dean just doesn't want to have to repeat his senior year."

"I think he really wants to be your friend again. He seems different, this year."

"Is that what you came to talk to me about?" Cas didn't really want to discuss Dean with his twin.

"No. Um. Cas, I found a pack of cigarettes in your trench coat. Are you smoking? You know, that kills-" Her eyes were wide and sad.

"Don't go though my things, Haniel, and mind your own business." Cas snapped harshly. "Get out of my room, don't even fucking talk to me." He got up, and Anna left quickly, eyes filling with tears.

The next day, Cas was still irritated enough by his argument with Anna, that he decided something had to be done to rebel. There was something that Cas had been wanting to do for a while, and he knew Dean was the perfect partner in crime for it. He wanted to see if their study-buddy relationship was anything more than that, and he figured this would be the perfect way to push that boundary.

"You want to _what?_" The lovely, perfect, adorable green eyes widened in shock.

"A tattoo. Do you want to come with or not?" Cas shifted his weight from foot to foot impatiently. "Next week."

"How? Will they do a seventeen year old?"

"They will if my ID says I'm 21." Cas grinned wickedly at the shock in Dean's face. Dean obviously had no clue how deep Cas's rebellion ran. "Look, if you want an ID, too-"

"Heck yes I do!" Dean smiled, "And a tattoo. Let's go all in on this, bitch." He punched Cas in the shoulder affectionately. "Dude, you're awesome."

Cas felt that thrill creep over his body. He could still barely believe that Dean had started speaking to him again, let alone just picked up their friendship where it had left off. _Well, about ten minutes before it left off_, he amended, and they walked down the hall together, bullshitting and laughing.

The next week, at the tattoo parlor, Cas was surprised to see that Dean picked out a pentacle with flames wrapped around it. While not particularly religious, Dean hadn't seemed particularly gothic either. Cas personally wanted big, beautiful, detailed angel wings on his back, not because he believed in angels, but because he had just always wanted wing tattoos on his back, for no reason at all. It was fitting, after all, with his family's bizarre obsession with angel baby names. He knew that the time and detail it would take would hurt like a bitch, so he was secretly relieved that Dean had come with.

As the artist finished the outline, the pain almost did become too much, and Cas felt hot liquid prickle at his eyelids. He opened his mouth to ask the man to stop, but as he did, he felt Dean's hand close around his, and squeeze reassuringly.

"You're doing great, Cas." Dean smiled at him. Cas smiled back, and the artist kept going.

A month later, it was getting well into fall, and the weather was increasingly chilly. Cas stuffed his hand down into the pockets of his trench coat, and pulled up his collar. This caused his tie to loosen, but he didn't care. The stupid suit was too big on him anyways, a hand me down from one of the older brothers. He hated going to church, but his mother insisted every Sunday. As he went up his walkway, something zinged past his head.

"Hey! Bitch! Up here!" It was Dean, throwing acorns from his tree house. Cas grinned, and climbed up the ladder.

The tree house was amazing. When they were kids, they had slept in the tree house as often as their parents allowed, sometimes with Sam and Gabe, sometimes alone. It was the memories of the times alone that Cas savored the most, because when they were kids, it hadn't been taboo to care for Dean. They'd played house (Of course, Cas always played the role of Mommy), holding hands, even lightly pressing their lips together once at age six, before they understood what it meant. Maybe Cas had always understood what it meant, though, because he couldn't remember not being in love with Dean.

Things had escalated when they hit puberty. One night, snuggled in the tree house, Cas had felt the first stirrings of something exciting and tantalizing in his nether regions. Half asleep, curled against Dean's side, feeling the rise and fall of the warm chest under his chin, he sleepily thrust his hips against the curve of the other boy's, over and over, until suddenly he felt the most amazing, unexpected release. He opened his eyes to meet the sleepy green ones regarding him. Silently, wanting Dean to feel what he had felt, he reached down and tentative stroked Dean's soft member. It jumped under his touch and he inexpertly fondled him to the same peak. This continued for the next year, sporadically, until they were in the summer before their first year of high school.

Then the Incident occurred, and Dean stopped speaking to him, and Castiel's heart was shattered.

This memory spiking in his brain, Cas hauled himself over the ledge. Dean sat, cross legged, a stack of papers in his lap.

"Hey." Cas said.

"Hey. Do you know Chuck Shurley?" Dean asked.

"Sorta. The writer kid who's in Scotland. We're not close, but I know him, yeah. Why?"

Dean thrust the papers at him. "Have you ever read his stories?"

"Some, a little. They're about you and Sam. Which makes sense, because he and Sam are, like, BFF's, or whatever."

"You're in here, too."

"Huh."

"You're an Angel of the Lord."

"Well, that makes sense."

"I guess. At the end, you go all evil."

"Huh." Cas was unsure why they were having this discussion.

"You should read it, it's kinda good. Kinda creepy, but interesting." Dean was watching him intently. Cas accepted the papers, shoving them into his pockets.

"Okay. Did you write that paper for Gamble's class?"

"Yeah. It sucks. I'll show you tomorrow, you can make your snarky little red marks all over, and whine about my grammar and how I don't understand the Civil War at all."

They sat talking in the tree house for a few more hours, and when Cas finally went home, it was with a smile on his face.


	3. Chapter 3: School Days

**Chapter Three: School Days**

Dean was disturbed. At first, he'd noticed the memories triggered by family photographs. He was flipping through a photo album of a family trip to Disneyland, and saw one of those cheesy top-of-the-rollercoaster snapshots, and suddenly it flared through his brain, as if he had actually been there. He remembered the feeling of the wind rushing past him, Sam's hand clutched tight in his own, the thrill of screaming and the adrenaline rushing through his veins. The next time it happened, he was talking to Sam about John and Bobby fixing the Impala after Dean had accidentally backed it into the garage, and without consciously knowing what he was saying, he told Sam his side of the story. Sam beamed at him in glee, and it took him a minute to realize that he really did remember being there. However, he still remembered the entire thirty three years of demon hunting. He was starting to think he was seriously going crazy. Whatever had stuck him in Bizarro World had yet to tip its hand, and Dean was beginning to get scared he'd eventually forget who he was.

There were other things he didn't understand. His raging alcoholism, for example seemed to have vanished. Since the moment he woke up in the alternate reality, he not only hadn't had a single drop of alcohol, he hadn't wanted to. And the women. Dean was deeply, deeply concerned about his lack of interest in women, not that he didn't recognize if a girl was pretty, or flirty, or slutty, he could identify these characteristics, but he felt nothing sexual towards them. It wasn't that he was gay- men did nothing for him, either. In fact, the only person he felt anything remotely sexual or romantic towards was Cas, and this deepened his suspicion that Godstiel was behind his imprisonment in the strange reality. Not that he hadn't been fighting attraction to the nerd-angel since the first time he started growling about 'gripping Dean tight' and 'raising him from Perdition' and all that, but in the real world, it was so much more weird and wrong to get a hard-on every time the angel spoke, or heaven forbid, get up in his personal space. In Bizarro World, it felt kinda right. This prompted even deeper concern.

The days went on, Dean's life settling into a normal high school routine. School, hanging out with Sam, or Cas, or at the junkyard. He worked on cars with his dad, helped his mother around the house, went to movies with Sam and Cas and sometimes Anna, and lived the apple pie life. He caught himself genuinely enjoying it at times, almost-but-not-quite managing to put the fact that it was all a demented illusion out of his brain, because he had already tried everything he could think of to tear it down. He tried testing Cas, showing him the stories, but there was no reaction, no hint of knowledge in the other boy. He felt his only option was to wait it out- after all, he was no newbie to the rules of alternate realities. In the end, no matter what, he would always be sent back to his hellish reality.

Dean, Sam and Cas went to the creek about a week after he gave Cas the stories. They sat on the sand, drinking Fanta and skipping stones.

"So, I read that book of Chuck's," Cas said, poking his finger into the sand. "It's pretty interesting. I never knew Chuck paid so much attention to us."

"Well, he's one of my best friends." Sam pointed out, "He's been around us a lot over the years. I think they're really cool, but sad. He says it's gonna be a thing, someday, that people are more interested in characters who are in a lot of pain, cuz they can relate. He says fans lose interest if there isn't constant turmoil."

"Makes sense," Dean said, "For movies, especially, and TV. People want to hear the 'and then they lived happily ever after' part, they don't want to watch it happen."

"Some people do," said Cas, "I like it when people are happy."

"You don't watch TV, you don't count." Dean flicked sand at him.

"Dick," Sam flicked sand back at Dean, "Cas counts, but he's wrong. He's read more than me, even, and books are the same as television. Cas, what are your top three favorite books?"

"Uh… In no particular order, _Love in the Time of Cholera, Cat's Cradle and Catcher in the Rye._"

Dean laughed, "In _Cat's Cradle, _everyone dies, suicide, ice nine, all about death."

"Yeah," Sam added, "And in _Love in the Time of Cholera_, the whole point is that Ariza wastes his whole life pining for Fermina, and then when they're finally together, it's not what he'd imagined all those years. And _Catcher, _well, that doesn't even need justifying. There isn't even a happily ever after, just a mental institution."

Cas looked miffed, and was silent.

"Sorry, angelcakes, but it's true." Dean smiled.

"Don't call me that, I fucking hate it when you call me that." Cas traced a pattern into the sand with his fingertip. "I like _Amelie._ That's upbeat. And _Harold and Maude._"

"Ew," Dean made a face, "Wrinkly sex, then she dies."

"So not the point," Sam looked at Dean archly, "Not the point at all."

"In any case, I thought Chuck's book was interesting. I'd like to know how it ends," Dean said, after a few moments of more sand flicking.

"Well, you'll have to wait. His family decided to go to Italy until Spring Break. They've got him enrolled in some fancy Italian school. He said he's taking a break from writing because it's hard enough learning Italian and keeping his grades up."

"Huh," Dean snorted. Inwardly, he was displeased. Chuck seemed like his only link to what was behind this dream. He could fly to Italy, he supposed, but part of him didn't want to leave the idyllic life he was suddenly leading.

_Wow. That's a scary fucking thought_. He flicked more sand at Cas.

"He's really got you pegged, though. Daddy issues, superiority complex. Me an' Sam's characters seem a little far fetched, don't you think?" He watched Cas closely for a reaction, but he only continued to draw lines in the sand.

"I dunno." Sam said, 'I think he's got us pretty pegged, too. I think we'd react pretty bad to Mom and Dad dying, and the nightmare his story puts us through. I don't think I'd go all dark side, but you'd totally become an alcoholic manwhore with control issues. You might anyways."

"Douche." Dean jumped to his feet, grabbed Sam, and with some difficulty, dragged him close the water for a dunking. Sam resisted, and of course they toppled in. Cas watched their shenanigans from the safety of shore, somberly. When Sam and Dean returned, Dean couldn't resist flinging his cold, wet body on Cas, and then, for some bizarre reason, the impulse to tickle Cas became overwhelming, so he did.

"Fuck, stop, Dean, shit-" Cas tried to squirm away, and Sam blocked his retreat. Finally, Cas had no recourse but to kick Dean rather painfully in the stomach, and the brothers gave up. The tickle fight pleased Dean to no end, but only seemed to make Cas grumpier.

"Yeah, okay, the daddy issues part is accurate. I guess. I don't think I have a superiority complex, quite the opposite. Everyone I care about leaves me, and the only common denominator is me."

"We didn't," Dean said. Sam looked uncomfortable, as if there was some other issue Dean was ignoring.

"Well, not now, but you guys are going to catch pneumonia if you don't get dry clothes soon, and leave me too," Cas said, "And Gabriel. He left as soon as he could. He always used to say he'd take me with him, but he didn't."

"Come on, now, Cas, it's not like you have it that bad. Your mom's nice, and Anna's cool." Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, I know, but they're super religious. I'm a huge fucking disappointment. They just have all this faith in God, and to me, he's just another absent Father." Cas tilted his head to the side forlornly.

Dean snorted, and both Cas and Sam looked at him weirdly.

"Sorry, just- well, you know. Chuck's book."

"Well, it's pretty obvious where he got that inspiration. I never said he was a good writer, just interesting." Sam said.

The conversation turned to lighter subjects, and finally the cold became too much for them, and the boys wandered home, tired and two thirds of them happy.

* * *

><p>Cas lay in his bed, unable to sleep. The day's conversation had left a deeper mark on him than he was comfortable with, and the whiskey had done nothing to improve his mood. He sat up, pulled his cigarettes from his Emergency Box, and was about to get up, when suddenly there was a tapping at the window. He dropped the smokes quickly into the wastebasket, and opened the window. It was Dean, hanging like a maniac from the tree outside.<p>

"Shhh!" Cas hissed, and let the evil monkey-boy into his room. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to say sorry about earlier, man. I didn't mean to bring up those issues. How're you doing?" The hazel green eyes were concerned.

"It's okay. I know you don't know what it's like to lose your Dad."

"I dunno. Pretend I'm Dean from the stories. Try me."

Cas looked at him doubtfully. "That's not the same."

"Either way, I'm here to listen." Dean flung himself down on Cas's bed, taking up twice as much space as the size of his body would lead one to believe. Cas sighed, and perched next to him, trying to reconcile his overwhelming depression with excitement from the fact that Dean Winchester was in his fucking bed.

"I mean, it sucks. How could it not suck?" Cas wasn't sure what to do with his hands, so he settled for crossing them over his chest. "My dad just disappeared, unsolved mystery. Who does that? Just leaves a whole family with no note, no reason, just 'pffft", gone?"

"A douchebag, that's who," Dean said.

"Commentary is not listening, Dean," Cas informed him, and uncrossed his arms long enough to poke Dean in his exceptionally firm tummy.

"Sorry," Dean apologetically closed his mouth.

"I don't want him to be a douche. I used to have these fantasies that he'd come back, and it would all be okay again. You have no idea how hard it was on my mom to raise all of us by herself. She sacrificed so much so Mike and Luse could go to college, and Gabe was uncontrollable, he fucked up more than all the rest of us put together. And you don't know how many times we've come this close-" he held his thumb and pointer finger out, "To losing the house. If your parents and Bobby and Ellen hadn't been there…" Cas let out a grateful sigh, "Back when we used to be like family." He fell silent.

"I'm sorry, Cas. I… I… What happened between us, man?" Dean sat up, turned to face Cas.

"What? Don't you remember?" Cas blinked in surprise.

"No, I really don't. Remember when I fell, at the end of the summer? I hit my head pretty hard, and some things are coming back, but a lot of it's fuzzy."

A look of realization dawned on Cas's face. "You don't remember? Wow. That explains… a lot, actually. Wow. Huh. Um."

It was Dean's turn for surprise at Cas's loss of words.

"What did I do to you?" he asked, concern all over his face, this time.

Cas looked away. "You were just… too cool to hang out with me, I guess."

"Really? Fuck, dude, I'm sorry. I… I don't know why I'd do that. You're the shit."

Cas smiled a little at that. "I'm glad we're friends again. I missed you. A lot. Especially after Gabe left. He was the only person I had to talk to, for a long time."

Dean reached out, wrapping an arm around Cas, pulling him close to his side. "Cas, if it helps, I can imagine how hard it must've been on you. You probably felt like it was your fault that your Dad left, tried to figure out what you'd done, thought if you could just fix it, or find him, or something, everything would just fall into place, and then when it didn't, just started to crumble, lose faith in anything, because all that ever happened was more and more pain. And then I made it worse. It sucks, man, that's more than any person should have to deal with."

Cas blinked at him. "That's… That's surprisingly accurate. You really took Chuck's book to heart, didn't you." Cas tried not to snuggle into Dean's side, but it was hard when Dean was practically forcing him to, and saying all the right, comforting things.

"Heh. More than you know."

Cas felt Dean smile into his hair. _Is Dean smelling my hair?_ Cas thought in bewilderment, and then pushed the thought away as batshit insane.

"I'm serious, though. It's not fair that you had this incredible burden placed on you, especially when it wasn't your fault. You were hardly even born; it was nothing that you did. You've just been trying to cope with extreme circumstances; doing what you thought was right. But you have to let that go. You can't carry all that anger and guilt around; it'll eat you up and leave nothing else."

Cas was silent, holding very still, and then suddenly wrapped his arms around Dean. He felt a tear begin to push at his eyelashes, and then suddenly before he could control it, he was sobbing into Dean's chest, getting snot all over his Def Leppard shirt, gasping for air. Dean stroked his back reassuringly, not noticing or not minding the snot situation.

"It's gonna be okay, Cas," Dean murmured, and hugged him.

After a few minutes, the tears subsided, and then they just lay quietly together, Dean still rubbing his back gently, Cas refusing to look up, terrified he'd break the spell of calm the break down had brought. Eventually, the stroking slowed, and Cas felt his brain begin to shut down.

When he woke up in the morning, Dean was sprawled out on his back, his body curving into Cas's. Cas was wrapped around him, and Dean's arm was still around his shoulders. Cas looked at him, still unconscious, his eyelashes crusted with sleep, and Cas thought Dean was so beautiful it might break his heart. He tried not to move, not wanting the spell to end.

It had to eventually, though, and Dean stirred, and stretched like a cat, moving his arm from under Cas. As he shifted, Cas suddenly realized that Dean was fully erect.

"Woah," he said, without meaning to.

"Uh…" Dean glanced down, and sat up abruptly, closing his body around his hard on. "Sorry, dude. I was dreaming about Neve Campbell. You know how it is."

"Uh, yeah. No problem." They sat in awkward silence for a few moments, then Dean got up, his back to Cas, and he grabbed a book off Cas's shelf.

"Can I borrow this?" he asked, waving it over his shoulder.

"Sure. Uh. See you at school."

"Yeah, at school." Dean held the book over his manly parts and acrobatically climbed out the window.

After he was gone, Cas collapsed on the bed, and let out an extremely heavy sigh.

_What the fuck,_ he thought, and retrieved his cigarettes from the garbage. _This is going to be the longest school year ever._

* * *

><p>Dean hadn't intended the night to play out as it had. He was hoping to get some sort of hint as to what trickery was afoot, and instead, he found himself snuggling the teenaged version of Castiel and then, <em>For fuck's sake, why couldn't I stop smelling him? <em>he berated himself, _And then the fucking dream. What the fuck. _Dean tried not to remember the dream, but he couldn't push the memory away.

_Dean was himself again, the hunter, and Cas was Castiel, in his stupid Jimmy-suit, slamming Dean into the wall the night he tried to say yes to Michael. Instead of beating the shit out of Dean, however, Dream-Cas pinned him to the bricks, and growled, "I rebelled for this? So you could surrender to them? I gave everything for you, and this is what you give to me?"_

"_Do it. Just do it!" Dean growled back, but instead of the fist to the face of Dean's memory, Cas kissed him, hard, his mouth punishing Dean, taking his lips, the angel forcing his tongue into Dean's mouth, and then Dean was kissing him back, fighting him for dominance. He felt teeth on his lip, and then the angel thrust his hand into Dean's pants, unzipping and liberating his suddenly hard cock. _

_Dean groaned, and Cas said roughly, "You do not belong to Michael. You taught me that free will is more important than anything else, and I believe in you, Dean. I believe you deserved to be saved, not because you were the vessel, but because you are the Righteous Man. Even as you betray us, I cannot abandon my faith in you. You will do what is right, no matter the cost, because you are a good man." The hand wrapped around his cock expertly twisted up and down, and Dean couldn't help his body's response, didn't want to help it. He wanted to fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness._

"_Knees are a good start." Cas said, and released him. Dean slumped to his knees, and unzipped Cas's slacks. The angel was just as aroused, and a bead of precum glistened at the tip of his cock. Dean unhesitatingly wrapped his lips around it, taking as much of it as he could, silently begging for absolution. He wet the shaft with his tongue, sucking and licking simultaneously, swallowing what would fit in his mouth. Cas groaned, his hand on the back of Dean's head, fingers tense. Dean could feel himself become painfully hard as he felt Cas's pleasure as clearly as his own pain, feeling them mix until he couldn't tell what was his emotion and what was Cas's. He drew back, swirled his tongue around the engorged head, and brought up a hand to aid his frantic mouth. Cas moaned, and thrust his hips against Dean's lips, and as Dean felt the salty cum explode into the back of his throat, he came too._

And of course, that was when he woke up to find awkward teenaged Cas staring at him in what he assumed was part mockery and part horror.

Which reminded him, the book.

_Well, fancy that. Love in the Time of Cholera. _Dean wasn't sure about the meaning of that coincidence.

* * *

><p>"I read that book. " A week later, Dean plopped down in the cafeteria seat next to Cas. He hadn't been avoiding Cas, but Cas had felt like things were awkward between them, during their study sessions and hanging out. Dean carefully avoided touching him, he'd noticed.<p>

"That was fast. You've been watching Hooked on Phonics, then?" Cas raised a mocking eyebrow.

"Fuck you, whore," Dean said good-naturedly, "I'm serious. That was pretty good. Florentino Ariza was fucked up, spent his whole life dreaming of an ideal that couldn't possibly be met."

"Huh. I don't see it that way. I see it as, he loves Fermina Daza his entire life, and never gives up, and she finally realizes who he is, and they live happily ever after."

"Not even. They have gross, old sex, and live out their days on a steamboat. Down. Ending."

"No, they spend the rest of their lives flying the cholera flag, because cholera is a metaphor for love."

"Cholera is a metaphor for how much love sucks, dude." Dean shoved half his fries into his mouth in one bite, and then started eye-fucking Cas's untouched cheeseburger. "You gonna eat that?"

Cas pushed the burger at Dean. "Have at her. You don't get it. The quest to obtain her love _gave_ his life meaning. Without that love, he would have been nothing. He spent his whole life trying to be worthy of her."

"Pfft." Dean snorted around his burger, and mumbled with his mouth half full, "He surrenders to love like sick people surrender to death. I repeat, down. Ending."

"Whatever. I'm glad you enjoyed it, even if you can't wrap your Neanderthal brain around how romantic it is." Cas smiled, to show he wasn't as condescending as his words.

Dean opened his now empty mouth to say more, but the bell rang, announcing a return to class.

"Whatever," Dean tried to imitate Cas's gravelly tone, "See you after school, bitch."

From the table across from them, Sam piped up. "Jerk!"

Laughing, they parted ways.


	4. Chapter 4: Hot For Teacher

**Chapter Four: Hot for Teacher**

Things slowly returned to 'normal'. Months had passed, and Dean had gotten comfortable around Cas again. He was also pretty sure Cas wasn't behind whatever brought him there, that the teenaged mutant non-angel was just another figment of Dean's almost certainly fractured psyche. He was increasingly concerned that he was stuck in where/when ever he was for good.

_I know I didn't encounter a high gravity black star or a member of the Q Continuum, and a Djinn would have killed me by now, _he speculated, _so this is probably just some sort of fucked up angel dream. Or I died, and this is what Godstiel replaced Heaven with, a holding pattern where I lust after him._

A few days into Spring Break, the first of two things happened that would change everything in Dean Winchester's fantasy world.

Cas came over to watch the Dollars Trilogy. Dean fell asleep, head resting on Cas's lap partway through _the Good, the Bad and the Ugly_. When he awoke, the movie was over and Cas was staring down at him with the sweetest, most tender expression imaginable. Dean had no idea why he did what he did next, but in retrospect, he thought maybe it was that he wanted to ease the guilt that flashed into those damnably blue eyes when Cas realized Dean had caught him watching him sleep. Or possibly, he'd just wanted to kiss the fucking spaz for too damn long.

Dean reached up and twined his fingers though the dark scruffy hair, and pulled those pink lips down onto his own. Oh, it was good, it was better than good; it was the best kiss Dean had ever had in either reality. Cas's lips were so much softer than he'd imagined, and sweet, like popcorn and cookie dough, and after a soft brush from Dean's tongue, they parted and allowed his tongue inside, tentatively brushing his own tongue back across Dean's. Dean moaned softly into the mouth, and as he did, it all came rushing back.

_Six years old, Cas pretending to bake cookies in the tree house, Dean playing the role of Father returning from work, saying, "Honey, I'm hooome!" and Cas pressing his lips softly against Dean's and breaking away, laughing._

_Thirteen years old, awakening to Cas rubbing against his hip in his sleep, moaning, the sensations of something starting inside of Dean, and the feel of a soft hand gently fumbling across his cock, bringing him to orgasm._

_Fourteen, days before freshman year, tackling Cas in the back yard and wrestling him to the ground, rolling over and over in a playful mock fight. Coming to rest underneath Cas, looking into each other's eyes, and Cas's breath warming his lips and then a kiss, soft, sweet, perfect and amazing and the sudden realization striking Dean that this was sexual, this was sex, this was love and romance and all things forever and it was too soon, too scary, and Dean pushing Cas up and off, yelling at him that he wasn't a fucking faggot, and stay the hell away from him, and what the fuck is wrong with you, and the next three years of trying to forget that amazing, perfect, be-all-end-all kiss._

Intermingling with his new memories, Dean flashed on the last three years in his own universe, every moment Cas was in his personal space, eye-fucking him, oblivious to the turmoil and confusion his presence awoke in Dean. The restraint Dean had shown because Cas was an angel, because Dean liked girls, dammit, because it would be wrong, because acting on those emotions meant not only changing everything Dean had ever known about his sexuality but also meant possibly causing Cas to fall, causing him to lose his Grace.

Then, back to the present, kissing Cas again, beautiful, wonderful, sweet, innocent Cas, who was moaning back into Dean's mouth, and Dean felt the stirrings of hardness on the back of his head, and suddenly Cas was standing, pushing him away, moving towards the door.

"I can't- I just- we- I can't!" The blue eyes were panicked now, and before Dean could react, Cas was gone.

"Fuck." Dean swore into the suddenly empty room.

* * *

><p>Dean Winchester was kissing him. Dean Winchester was <em>kissing<em> him. _Dean Winchester_ was kissing him. Holy fucking shit. It was perfect, it was so much better than any fantasy Cas had ever dared entertain, and god, he did not want it to end, but then the sudden terror struck him that this was dangerous, this was opening himself up to the opportunity for someone to leave him again, for someone to tear his heart right out and destroy it, and he could not let that happen again, and he was up and stammering, and terrified, and running for the door.

He made it to his house and took several deep, calming breaths that failed to do anything of the sort. He grabbed his Emergency Box, and left out the back, so Dean couldn't see and follow, and got on his bike, headed for the creek.

He sat on the sand, opened his box, and took out a cigarette. He opened the bottle of Jack Daniel's next, took a generous swig, and then set about rolling a joint while he smoked the rest of his cigarette.

"Fuck," he said aloud, to himself, and lit the joint. Sweet, sweet numbness clouded his brain, calming him finally. He finished the bottle, rolled another joint.

It was morning by the time he wobbled home and no sooner had he quietly snuck in his front door, than there was a knock behind him. He checked the peephole, and it was Dean, fucking Dean Winchester, and he had flowers, fucking _flowers_. Why the fuck was Dean Winchester bringing him flowers?

Castiel opened the door.

* * *

><p>Cas had run out, and Dean sat, not knowing what to do. He wanted to chase him, catch him up and apologize for everything, kiss him and pet him, and promise it would be all right.<p>

_Do I really want that? Or is this just a part of my fucked up acid trip universe? _he thought frantically, and then there was a cough from the door of the den. _Cas?_ he thought, and looked up to see-

"Chuck!" Dean was up in an instant, grabbing the scrawny teenaged Chuck Shurley by the shoulders. "Chuck! Tell me you fucking remember! Tell me you know why I'm here!"

"Hey, Dean. How's it been?" Chuck laughed nervously, pulling away from Dean's overexcited grip.

"Oh, swell, Chuck, super swell, just going fucking crazy here, and you're the only one who seems to know what I went through over the last thirty fucking years!" Dean snapped hysterically, "Tell me why you wrote those stories!"

"Um, yeah. About that. I think you might want to sit down for this one."

Dean regarded him suspiciously, but released him and returned to the couch.

"What the hell, Chuck?"

"Okay. Well. Um. It's like this. Remember when you and Sammy met me? And I told you I was God?"

Dean stared at Chuck in unabated horror.

"You have to be shitting me."

"Nope. Well, sort of. Chuck's a vessel. My vessel. The vessel. He's Chuck, too, but sometimes, he's me."

"You- you're- you're-" Dean stammered.

"God. Yup. That's me."

Dean tried to process that revelation. He didn't want to believe it, didn't want to fall for the trick, but it kinda made sense, when he thought about it.

"What- why- how-"

"Well, see, here's the thing. I made humans with free will, because the angels had no choice but to love me, and while that's all sweet and everything, it's not really fulfilling. I hoped that humankind would have the choice to love me or not, and choose to do so anyway. And some of you did, and that was good, and all, but then I just wanted… I dunno. Something different. So I left for a while, walked the earth, really got to know my children. And while I was out, things got kinda-"

"Fucked. Things got fucked up, Chuck." Dean was still staring at Chuck with a mixture of shock and awe.

"Yeah. And I tried to help, really, I did, but I wanted… Well, I wanted to see if I gave the angels free will, if they'd make the right choices, too."

"And they didn't."

"You know, I really thought Cas would. I thought he'd teach the angels how to make the right choices, but instead he went all deity on me, and by the time I checked my inbox, so to speak, he was about to go nuclear. Sam was dead, you were about to be, and I just, well, I just gave up. You were right, Dean, it was too much. Too much pain, too much horror. So I started over." Chuck shrugged.

"You _what?" _Dean gaped, comprehension dawning.

"I started over. Think less DeLorean, more _Donnie Darko._ I talked it over with Eve, and we decided-"

"Eve, mother-of-all Eve?"

"Well, yeah, you didn't really kill her so much as kill her vessel. Us god-types don't die easy, you know. And Death, he had a lot to say on the subject, and Atropros. We negotiated that I'd take all the people who had suffered, and all the people they loved, and all the people who should never had died, and bring them here. I gave Eve and all her children the universe that used to be Earth, and I started over here. I brought my most beloved angels here, too, because you know, I love them. Cas, especially. I had such high hopes for him. But here, maybe, you guys can all live that happily ever after that only existed in fairy tales and shitty movies before."

Dean gaped at Chuck. Too many questions flooded his brain. First, "Did you make me gay for Cas? What happened to Ben and Lisa? Why kill people like Jo's real dad? Why do I remember, and no one else does? Why didn't you just tell me? For that matter, how am I supposed to believe anything you say? How do I know this is even real?"

"Slow down, bucko. I did not make you 'gay for Cas', you've always been in love with the big dork. You know that. You've always known that, and he's always been gay for you. Think about it- if he'd been in a female vessel, eye-sexing you all the time, do you think you would have resisted? Even out of a misguided attempt to preserve his Grace?"

Dean considered this uncomfortably.

"Lisa's alive and well, but she's also in her early teens. Ben hasn't been born, although, I can promise you, if you want to go to her and have a family, he will be. But otherwise, she'll live out her life without you, perfectly happy and alive, and safe. Jo's real dad died in a regular hunting accident- I guess you didn't get to that memory. Bobby and Ellen got together after his wife died of cancer. Just because I started over, doesn't mean everything can be perfect. It wouldn't be real, then. But I tried to fix things so the people you loved would find happiness, Dean, I did, and it wrapped everything up in a nice, narrative flow, didn't it? And tell me Bobby and Ellen aren't a perfect couple. See? You can't. Because they are."

Dean tried to wrap his mind around what he was hearing.

"Why do I remember, Chuck? Why doesn't Sammy?"

"Sam had it pretty rough in the Cage, I think his psyche really jumped at the chance to live a normal life. I mean, he always wanted that, even at his most hopeless. He took to this universe like the proverbial duck to water. You, not so much. The first time was a disaster."

"The first time?"

"I tried this whole new universe thing out, and you were in a mental asylum by age twelve. You're too much a hunter, Dean. It's so much of who you are. You remembered anyway, and it ruined you. I hoped if I let you remember, you might choose this world, eventually, that you might choose to accept it on your own. But you're still confused and lost, and I kinda realized that it wasn't fair to trap you here with no explanation, so here I am. I'm sorry 'bout that, but I really didn't know what else to do. And I can't prove any of this to you, any more than I could prove anything to you in the other world. You gotta decide for yourself if you can take this on faith or not, but I can't put you back. "

They were silent for several long, long minutes. Finally, Chuck coughed awkwardly, again.

"So. Yep. I mean, you don't really get a choice this time. If I put it all back the way it was, you'll all die. When I said Cas was going nuclear, I didn't just mean, good bye North America. I meant, good bye, Milky Way Galaxy."

"I… Wow, Chuck. I mean, uh, God? Just… fuckin' wow. That's a lot to take in."

"Yeah. I know. But it's good, right? No demons, no angels, no destiny. Just people, and free will, like you always wanted. And, you know, Cas. If you want him."

Dean snorted. "_If_ I want him? I fucking need him, more than I've ever wanted or needed anything. Fuck." He was silent again for a few beats. Then, he looked up at Chuck. "Thanks, man. Really. I mean it. I get it, I understand why you did what you did. I really appreciate you making it right. Giving my family a second chance. I don't like that my options are accept it or go crazy, but if you're telling the truth… So, yeah, thanks."

Chuck smiled at Dean, snapped his fingers, and was gone.

Dean sat for a while, lost in thought. After everything he had been through, after all of the Hell, and death and pain, and suffering, was it really over? He looked over at the photographs of his family on the wall of the den.

_If this isn't real, then why does it feel so real? Why hasn't it crumbled? Anything is possible when you throw out the book, I guess._ _The Djinn hallucinations always crumbled, so did Gabriel's. This feels right. In the end, all we have ever had was our gut instinct, and my gut's telling me, this is real. This is right. Cas had me pegged, the first time, when he asked if I believed I deserved to be saved. Maybe I don't know if I deserve it, but everyone else… They fucking deserve it._

He sighed, thinking about the months of wanting Cas, _Fuck, the years of wanting that feathery fucker, and if you wanna talk gut instinct… Yeah. That makes up my mind. _

Dean went to the store, and bought a big fucking bouquet of the most ridiculous roses he could find, and sat on his front porch until the sun rose, waiting for Cas to manifest his non-feathery ass. Finally, he saw Cas stumble up his walkway and close the door quietly behind him. Dean crossed the yard, and knocked.

The door opened. There was Cas, trench coat covered in sand, eyes reddened.

Dean's words tumbled out, half the speech he had rehearsed while waiting, half babble. "Look, don't shut the door, Cas, I'm sorry, I didn't remember everything before, what I said to you was fucking awful, but now I do and I'm so sorry and I was such a douche, but now I remember and it's you, man, it's always been you, wait a minute, are you fucking high?"

Cas's glassy eyes widened a little. "No… Well, yes. And drunk. Um. Can we go talk in the tree house? Anna and Mom are probably still asleep."

"Fuck, Cas, you can't do that shit. Yeah. Tree house."

They silently made their way into the tree house. Once inside, Cas lit a cigarette, looking out the window and pointedly away from Dean. Dean's eyebrows went upwards in surprise, but before he could reprimand Cas, he spoke.

"I've been using this shit ever since freshman year, It was too much, Dean, people always leaving me. Dad. Gabriel. You. I couldn't deal. Pot… drinking… it made it easier, m me numb. And then you just start acting like the last three years didn't happen, and then you fucking kiss me, and expect it all not to matter? It doesn't work that way. Real life doesn't have happy endings. I'm not someone you can just use to explore your occasional faggot impulses. I'm not going to let you hurt me again."

"I'm not going to hurt you, you nerdy little fuck. I'm in love with you. I have always been in love with you, and I'm not gonna let you pull that cholera shit with me."

Cas started at that, eyes darting over to where Dean sat.

"Bullshit."

"I said I was sorry, Cas, I meant it. I was scared. When you kissed me, I was scared shitless because we were fucking thirteen, and that is too fucking young to realize you met your soul mate, but now I get it, and I'm not scared. I'm not going to leave you, I promise. You and me, forever, Tommy and Gina, and all that shit. I love you, I _love_ you, I love _you._"

Cas dropped the cigarette that had gone out while Dean was monologue-ing, and with a wordless, joyful noise, tumbled into Dean's arms, and then they were kissing again, and this time, it was free of any of the baggage it had carried before. Cas's tongue was pushing into his mouth, tasting of liquor and pot and smoke, but delicious anyway, and Dean was pulling Cas as close as he could, pushing the trench coat off the skinny shoulders, running his hands against the shaking back. Cas twined his arms around Dean's neck and held his head close as if he was worried Dean would pull away and leave him, but instead, Dean lifted the smaller boy and pushed him down onto his back. Dean looked down at him and grinned.

"I love you," he said, and lowered his head to nip gently at the skin below Cas's ear. Cas moaned, leaning his neck towards the pressure of Dean's mouth.

"Oh, Dean," he gasped. Dean kissed the pale skin, down Cas's neck, and back up again. He reclaimed the pink lips, sliding one hand down along Cas's stomach. As he drew his hand back up, he brought Cas's shirt up with it, trailing his fingers across the flat stomach. Cas gasped again, and Dean smiled at him.

Cas struggled upright, and helped Dean pull his shirt all the way off. Then he tugged at Dean's black AC/DC shirt, and as soon as it was off too, they were pressed together again, hot skin on hot skin. Cas pressed his teeth gently into Dean's neck, his shoulder, his chest, stopping to lick light strokes across the flat nipple. It was Dean's turn to gasp at the electric charge that shot from his chest to his groin. He was hard, so fucking hard, cock straining against his zipper. Cas smiled up at him, and then glanced down, eyes clouded with arousal. He tugged at Dean's belt, and Dean helped him undo it, hands shaking slightly with anticipation. Cas pushed Dean's hips back, and pulled his jeans down as far as he could. Too impatient to remove the boxers, he took the head of Dean's cock into his mouth, and swirled his tongue around the head. As he slowly increased the suction, he looked up at Dean with heavily lidded eyes, a seductive look radiating from the blue eyes to the hazel ones. Dean almost lost complete control there, and only the thirty three year old man-whore inside kept him from coming then and there.

"Oh, god, Cas, stop-" Fear filled the blue eyes- "No, I mean, I just don't want to, you know," he shrugged, "Not yet. I want to go slow. I want this to be perfect for you."

Cas smiled, and gave Dean's dick another light swipe of his pink tongue. Dean groaned, and shivered. Then he pulled Cas up, and kissed him again, tasting his saltiness on the other boy's lips.

"Dean," Cas murmured into his mouth, "As long as it's with you, it's perfect."

Dean ran his hand along Cas's cheek in appreciation of the sentiment, and then pushed him down on his back again. He pulled at Cas's hips, his well muscled abdomen leading to the most perfect hips bones ever created by God, and Cas lifted them obligingly so Dean could slide his pants down. Cas was not wearing underwear, and he was hard, and long and Dean smiled wolfishly when he saw a bead of clear liquid already oozing from the tip. He moved his body over Cas's, and they both gasped in unison this time as their cocks rubbed against each other's, hot, hard and sinfully perfect. Cas's hips thrust against Dean's, and his hands clutched at Dean's ass, holding him as close as possible. Dean reached down between their bodies and rubbed the oily liquid now coming from both of them along their shafts, until they were slick and the sensation of the sliding flesh against his cock was almost overwhelmingly erotic.

"Oh, god…" Cas moaned, eyes closed, cheeks flushed and lips swollen, his head thrown back as he became utterly lost in the moment. Dean felt a thrill of triumph that he had finally made his angel- _Seriously? Am I suddenly gay enough to call him that?_ he thought, considered what he was doing, _Yeah I am._ he amended, and gave himself completely over to the passion.

Cas's nails bit into his skin, and he buried his face in Cas's neck as orgasm overtook them both, Cas crying out, "I love you!" and Dean groaning it back, spasms shaking their bodies, cum pumping out onto their stomachs. Dean almost collapsed and just barely managed to keep his weight from crushing the smaller boy. Cas lay, body limp, breath coming is gulps, his chest as flushed as his lips, and his face-

"Are you okay?" Dean asked, suddenly concerned, "Are you crying?"

The blue eyes opened, confirming that yes, Cas was tearing up. "Yeah, I am, don't call me gay, I'm not sad, I'm just-"

"I know. I'm just, too. And, I won't call you a fag if you won't call me one."

"Deal." Cas pulled Dean's lips to his, kissed him lightly, kissed his neck, his cheek, his lips again. "I waited for you for so long, Dean. I feel like it was a thousand years, a millennia, and it finally- I can't believe it finally happened."

"Yeah." Dean moved off Cas, laying next to him on the trench coat. He pulled Cas close, nuzzled his face into the black mess of hair. "Me, too."

They lay there a long time, gently touching each other's bodies, stroking, cuddling, caressing. When they finally got up, it wasn't because they wanted to, but because they had to get cleaned up before school.

Dean kissed Cas one last time.

"I'll see you in class," he smiled. Cas smiled back, before disappearing over the edge of the tree house.


	5. Chapter 5: Smokin' in the Boy's Room

**Chapter Five: Smoking in the Boy's Room**

_Meet me in the 4th floor boy's bathroom._ Cas crumpled up the note Dean had slipped into his locker. Excited, nervous, he went up to the bathroom. He pushed the door open, entered, looked around, and was suddenly pinned to the door by Dean, lips pressing against his hotly, a hand on either side of him. He returned the kiss happily, nipping gently at Dean's lower lip.

After a moment, Dean pulled his lips back a fraction and whispered, "We don't have much time." He kissed Cas again, and used one hand to unbuckle his belt, wrapping his hand around Cas's already hardening cock. Cas moaned, and let his eyes roll back in pleasure. Dean moved his lips to Cas's cheek, and then his neck, rubbing his thumb along the sensitive underside. Then with a devilish grin, he dropped to his knees.

"A few months back, when I slept over? That dream I had? It wasn't Neve Campbell I was dreaming about. It was this." Dean put his mouth on Cas's dick, and Cas couldn't hold back a moan. As Dean's tongue swirled around the head of his cock, and the pressure of Dean's mouth sucked at his aroused flesh, Cas felt overwhelmed by the sensation. When Dean hummed around him, he lost all control, pulling Dean's head down the shaft reflexively.

"F-f-fuck, Dean," he moaned, then paused- "Are you humming _Stairway to Heaven?_" Dean chuckled around Cas's dick, and that produced a whole new series of vibrations. Dean teased and caressed him, and finally swallowed around him, and it was too much, Cas came shaking into Dean's mouth. Dean swallowed again, and moved back up Cas's body, kissing him on the lips lightly. Cas could taste himself on Dean's lips, and _God, that's fucking hot,_ he thought, sliding his tongue into Dean's mouth.

The bell rang, signaling the next period starting.

"Fuck," Dean smiled, "Never enough time. Hey, okay, so my parents are driving Sammy down to some leadership conference in Wichita tonight. Come sleep over?"

"Of course," Cas smiled back, and then of course they had to go to class.

It was the longest rest of the school day ever, in Cas's entire life, and then there was a quick stop at the local head shop, going home, and dinner with his family, and then _finally_ he was able to head over to Dean's.

There was a note on the door. _Come upstairs,_ simply written. Cas went inside, and smiled at the sound of _Stairway to Heaven_ playing in Dean's room.

He pushed the door opened, and stopped dead in his tracks, unsure of whether it would be inappropriate to burst into laughter.

Dean had lit candles, everywhere, and there were rose petals on the bed. Cas's amusement must have shown on his face, because Dean blushed furiously, and stammered, "Don't make fun of me, bitch. I wanted it to be special. Perfect."

"I know, I know, thank you, but seriously? Rose petals?"

"Shut up." Dean crossed the room, and pulled Cas's hips into his own. "I waited a long time for this. So did you. Don't you think we deserve to be happy?"

Cas smiled, "Yeah, you definitely deserve to be gay."

"Fuck you."

"Isn't that the idea?"

"Yeah, about that. Dibs on top."

"Do you really picture it going the other way?" Cas raised a wry eyebrow.

"Do you know you look like Spock when you do that?" Dean smiled again, and kissed him. Cas could spend forever kissing Dean, getting lost in the softness of the full lips and the gentle moans Dean released against his mouth. He didn't even care who Spock was, or if Dean was mocking him. Dean pulled him towards the bed, pushing him down. He straddled Cas, rubbing his clothed erection against Cas's. They kept kissing, hands sliding under the other's shirt, removing clothing as quickly as they could to continue kissing. When Dean started to move down Cas's body, Cas stopped him.

"No, it's your turn." Cas pulled him down, and kissed Dean's throat, his clavicle. He stopped to lick at one hardened nipple, eliciting another moan from Dean. He kissed his way down the hard, golden stomach, and let out a happy sigh as his lips closed around Dean's cock. Dean held very still, as Cas licked the tip softly, then licked up and down the sides like it was a popsicle. Dean laughed a little, and Cas glared at him.

"It's not like I've practiced this."

"No, I'm sorry, it feels good. You just look… I dunno… So innocent. Curious. It's cute." Dean cupped Cas's cheek in his hand, stroking his lower lip with his thumb, "Don't stop."

Cas obliged, this time closing his lips around the head, sliding his hand around the saliva slicked base. The feel of the incredible softness of the skin over the hardness of the tissue beneath excited him, and he felt himself growing almost painfully hard. He slowly inched his mouth down the shaft, quickening the bobbing of his head until he didn't need his hand anymore, and Dean was groaning, thrusting his hips up in time with Cas's sucking.

Cas felt the muscle under his lips twitch warningly, and with a few last light licks, he kissed the tip gently, this time causing Dean to groan in disappointment.

"Sorry," Cas grinned, "But you don't get to cum until you're in me."

Dean growled, and grabbed the smaller boy, flipping him over and biting at his neck playfully.

"Deal," he said, and reached over to his nightstand, producing lube and a condom. "I didn't know if you wanted-" Dean blushed again.

"I don't know-" Cas was also blushing now. He hadn't thought about condoms.

"Yeah. Um. Well, I've never been with anyone before, so-"

"Me neither. I mean, if you don't want to use it, it doesn't really matter to me, either way."

"Well, I mean. I wanted it around in case you wanted-" Dean paused, awkwardly, "I kinda feel like this is it, for me, like, you're who I'm gonna be with, forever. And I think you-"

"I feel exactly the same." Cas smiled.

"So." Dean tossed the condom back down on the nightstand.

""Oh!" Cas suddenly remembered the purchase he'd made at the shop earlier. "I got you something." He reached over to his abandoned trench coat, and pulled out a plastic tube. Dean accepted it, and burst out laughing.

"And you mocked me for the candles."

"I thought you might like it." Cas smiled.

"I _love_ it. I love you. You're fucking amazing, Cas." Dean kissed him on the tip of his nose, and soon they were sucking face furiously again, their cocks rubbing against the other between their flushed bodies. Finally, Dean opened the tube of apple pie scented lube, and oiled his fingers up. Cas spread his legs, and felt Dean's finger brush softly across his puckered opening, Dean's other hand applying a light layer of lube to his own cock. Still touching himself, Dean slid one finger slowly into Cas. Cas whimpered, and moved restlessly against Dean's penetration. Dean stroked his finger gently along the hot muscle, and when Cas moaned in enjoyment, he withdrew and returned with two fingers. This produced even more moaning, and Dean hesitantly hooked his fingers, delicately stretching Cas's tightness. Cas thrust against the fingers impatiently, growling at Dean, eyes desperate.

"Three?" Dean raised an eyebrow, and Cas was too breathless to speak, so he nodded instead. Dean added a third finger, and scissoring gently, made contact with a place inside him that produced fucking fireworks for Cas.

"Fuuuuck." Cas moaned, and clutched the sheets in his hands, trying not to come before Dean fucked him.

"Close your eyes and think of the Queen." Dean was suddenly over him, and Cas choked a little at the joke, before feeling the head of Dean's cock pushing slowly into him. It was a little uncomfortable, bigger than the fingers, but after Dean had eased his full length in, Cas felt his body adjust, and pulled at Dean's hips, urging him to move. Dean began rocking against him faster, each brush against the bundle of nerves, sending shivers shooting through Cas's entire body. Too soon, it was too much for both of them, and Cas felt Dean's warm cum flooding his insides. He opened his eyes, taking in the rapturous expression on Dean's face as he came, too. Dean collapsed against him, burying his face in the crook of Cas's neck.

"Fuck, Cas, just, fuck…" Dean blew a hot sigh into Cas's neck.

"Perfect." Cas smiled against Dean's shoulder. "Fucking perfect."

* * *

><p>They fucked at every opportunity presented over the ensuing months, in school, on the shores of the creek, in the tree house, sneaking over to the other's house. It was bliss, perfect, idyllic happiness. It carried them though to June, and the final week of school. Cas almost to be afraid, and then school let out, and it all started to crumble.<p> 


	6. Chapter 6: School's Out

**Chapter Six: School's Out**

They attended the end of the year party as a group, Dean, Cas, Anna and a few other friends. Dean and Cas had yet to reveal to anyone but Sam that they were a couple, because Cas was afraid of how his family would react, what with the associated fire and brimstone dooming homosexuals. Dean knew John and Mary had a good idea of what was going on, but he didn't feel the need to discuss it- their unspoken support was enough.

At some point, Cas went out for a cigarette, and Anna cornered Dean.

"I just wanted to thank you for coming back into Cas's life, this year. I felt him grow more and more distant, and I was really scared for a while we would lose him, but then you came back to him, and he started to come around to the ways of God again." Her eyes were shining with gratitude, and Dean didn't sense at first what else was bubbling beneath her surface. Then she pressed her lips to his, and Dean froze in shock, not responding for a few seconds because, _seriously, what the hell?_ and then his reason kicked in and he pushed her away.

"I'm sorry, Anna, I can't- it's not- I don't feel that way about you."

All she said was, "Oh," in a small voice, and exited the hallway quickly.

_Okay. That sucked. Where'd Cas flit off too?_ Dean thought, and put the incident out of his mind.

* * *

><p>Cas saw Anna press her lips to Dean's, saw Dean allow her to deepen the kiss, and then he was off, running up the stairs to find a place where he could freak the fuck out. A door opened in front of him as he went down the upstairs hallway.<p>

"Hey, Cassie!" It was Gideon, his dealer. Cas didn't really care for Gideon, but he knew that he'd have some decent pot to smoke, and that was preferable to losing his shit.

"Hey, Gids. You got anything cool?"

"Oh, I have _everything_ that's cool, man. Come on in."

Cas sat down in the circle of druggies, taking a hit from the joint and then the bowl and then the bong as they were passed around. He was handed a bottle of something amber-colored, and by the time Gideon broke out the coke, Cas was all too willing to try it. He was about to inhale sharply, when he felt pressure at the back of his neck, and found himself yanked to his feet by a furious Dean.

Dean had been looking for Cas for about an hour before he thought to check the upstairs rooms designated the "don't ask, don't tell" region of the party. Of course Cas was there, and when Dean opened the door, he was about to do a line of some sort of treacherous white powder. Dean grabbed the back of his coat, pulling him roughly to his feet.

"What the _fuck_, Cas?" he growled with unconcealed fury.

"What the _fuck_ to you, Dean. I saw you and Anna-"

"Dude, she kissed me, I stopped her, she left. That does not in any fuckin' way justify snorting shit," Dean was propelling him out of the room, down the hallway as he spoke, "We are leaving, we are discussing this. End of story."

Cas didn't resist, as Dean hauled him out to the Impala. They were silent as Dean drove to the beach, and it continued until they parked near the creek and made their angry way down to the bank. Cas plunked himself down pissily, and took out his cigarettes.

"Look, Cas, I'm sorry about Anna. I didn't know she felt that way about me. She surprised me, I stopped her, told her no. I promised you that I wouldn't leave you, I said I love you, and only you, forever. I meant it. You gotta learn to trust me, man."

Cas was silent. He lit a cigarette, focused on that.

"Look. Here's the thing. I wanted to talk to you about this for a while but I thought… I thought you stopped. I thought I made it better, and you didn't have to do that shit. I know what it's like. I was drinkin' kinda heavily for a while, to stop feeling, and then when I fell, it all just stopped, I didn't want to anymore. I still don't… And I didn't want to try and control you, tell you what to do, but I need you to stop now. All of it." Dean plucked the cigarette from Cas's fingers, threw it into the water.

Cas had been regarding him silently, expression unreadable.

"I found my own ways to cope without you. I don't think it's your place to judge them."

"We finally got our shit straightened out, Cas, and now it scares me more than anything to think about losing all of this, "Dean gestured around him, "And you using, that threatens it. I don't think I gotta explain to you why snorting hardcore drugs is bad, but even the pot and alcohol, the cigs- these are things that could take you away from me, after I waited so long to have you, have this. The thought of you drinking yourself to death, getting lung cancer, any of that… I don't want to do this without you, Cas. "

"You didn't wait for me, Dean, I waited for you."

"I'm sorry that I pushed you away, Cas, but you gotta believe me when I tell you that I was waiting, too. Longer than you can know, I was waiting for this to happen, for this to be okay, for it to be this perfect. _Please_. Please stop doing these things that can tear it all down." Dean reached over, and took Cas's hand in his. Cas allowed the contact silently, looking out into the water.

After a long, long time, Cas finally said, "Okay. I'll do it. No more drugs. For us, for a future with you."

"Thank you." Dean pulled him close, kissed him softly on the mouth. Cas returned the pressure with his own, and they made love slowly, softly on the sand. Dean might have cried a little, in a very manly way, but he'd never admit it to anyone but Cas.

* * *

><p>It was over a year before Cas could honestly sober up and learn to trust Dean. He relapsed, picked stupid fights with Dean, picked himself back up, let Dean pick him back up, and finally, after one night drinking until he almost did die, started going to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, started seeing a therapist. Started figuring out that even when things had been at their worst, Dean hadn't left him, and the moment he realized that the only one that could take Dean away from him was himself, that was when he started to change.<p>

That was the year he and Dean got married.

A few years after that, Sam married Jess, his high school sweetheart, and they moved to California to go to school together.

Five years later, Sam and Jess had the first of several freakishly tall children. They named her Deanna Marie.

Ten years down the road, Dean and Cas adopted a baby girl, and named her Samantha Miriam.

Seventy years into a blissful future, John and Mary Winchester passed away, asleep in bed, holding hands.

So, everyone Dean loved lived happily ever after.

The End.


End file.
